Bug Encyclopedia
Search and identify bugs & insects — beetles, butterflies, moths, ants, bees, spiders and more — with size, habitat, danger, behavior, and how to tell them apart.
Robber Fly
A powerfully built, bristly-faced predatory fly that ambushes other flying insects in midair, piercing them with a stout beak-like proboscis.
fly
Tube Web Spider
A sleek, cylindrical spider that lives inside a silk-lined tube and dashes out to seize insects that stumble across its radiating trip-lines.
spider
Snakefly
A slender predator named for its habit of rearing up its long, mobile neck like a tiny cobra when hunting or threatened.
other
Midge
A slender, mosquito-like fly that forms dense swarms near water at dusk, easily mistaken for a mosquito but lacking any biting mouthparts.
fly
Sphinx Moth
A large, streamlined, fast-flying moth with narrow triangular wings and a robust, tapering body, famous for hovering at flowers at dusk like a hummingbird.
moth
Io Moth Caterpillar
A bright lime-green caterpillar bristling with clusters of branching, stinging spines and thin red and white racing stripes along its sides.
caterpillar-larva
Stinging Rose Caterpillar
A boldly striped slug caterpillar in candy-like tones of yellow, orange, and purple, crowned with tufted spine clusters that can sting on contact.
caterpillar-larva
Moth
A broad group of scale-winged insects related to butterflies, typically nocturnal, with stout, often furry bodies and feathery or thread-like antennae.
moth
Northern Walkingstick
A slender, wingless insect so convincingly shaped like a twig that it can rest motionless on a branch just inches from view and go completely unnoticed.
mantis-stick
Long-jawed Orb Weaver
A slender, stick-like spider with oversized jaws that stretches its legs flat along a stem or spins a loose orb web low over water.
spider
Diving Bell Spider
The world's only truly aquatic spider, famous for spinning an underwater silk bell that it fills with air, allowing it to live, hunt, and breed almost entirely submerged.
spider
Halloween Pennant
With broad orange-amber wings banded in dark brown, this dragonfly perches conspicuously atop tall grass stems, swaying like a small flag in the breeze.
dragonfly
Elephant Hawk-Moth
A strikingly colored olive-green and bright pink hawk moth named for its caterpillar's trunk-like tapered front end and large false eyespots.
moth
Caterpillar
The soft-bodied, segmented larval stage of butterflies and moths, recognized by its worm-like shape, multiple pairs of stubby legs, and voracious appetite for leaves.
caterpillar-larva
Thrips
A minuscule, slender insect with fringed, feather-like wings, often noticed only as a fast-moving dark speck darting across a flower petal or windowsill.
other
Water Boatman Bug
A boat-shaped little swimmer that rows through pond water with oar-like hind legs, grazing on algae rather than hunting other animals.
true-bug
Mayfly Nymph
A short-lived aquatic grazer with feathery gills along its abdomen, living for months underwater before a brief, spectacular mass emergence as a winged adult.
aquatic-insect
Soldier Fly
A wasp-mimicking fly with a flattened, often metallic body that spends its larval life quietly breaking down decaying plant matter or aquatic debris.
fly
Backswimmer
A boat-shaped aquatic true bug that swims upside down using oar-like hind legs, patrolling pond water in search of small prey.
aquatic-insect
Bed Bug
A small, flat, reddish-brown, wingless insect shaped like an apple seed that hides in mattress seams and bed frames by day and emerges at night to feed.
true-bug
Lace Weaver Spider
A stocky, mottled spider that spins a distinctive bluish, woolly-looking lace-like web across bark and wall crevices to snare passing insects.
spider
Caddisfly
A moth-like insect whose larvae are famous for constructing portable protective cases out of silk and whatever sand, twigs, or debris they can find.
aquatic-insect
Bumblebee Moth
A fuzzy, day-flying sphinx moth that hovers at flowers like a bee, with mostly clear wings and a black-and-yellow banded body that mimics a bumblebee.
moth
Goliath Beetle
One of the largest and heaviest beetles on Earth, a massive scarab with a bold pattern of black, white, and brown stripes across its shield-like body.
beetle